Google Play guidelines now restrict devs from including user reviews in app descriptions

Google recently updated its Play store developer guidelines, and the change could force a lot of devs to update the descriptions of their apps.

On the “Keyword spam” page of Google’s Android Developer Help site, the big G tells developers that their app descriptions shouldn’t contain user testimonials because they can be “dubious” and often include references to search terms and competitor apps. Google’s full explanation:

“Please do not include user testimonials in your app description. They tend to be dubious and are frequently utilized to include references to popular search terms and competitor apps in violation of the policies outlined here. Let your users speak for themselves via Play's comment review system.”

While not every developer includes user reviews in their app descriptions, it’s likely that there are some devs out there that’ve picked out some quality reviews to include in their descriptions. Now it looks like doing so could have a negative impact on your app, so it’d be wise to pull any user reviews in your app descriptions if you’ve got ‘em in there. Sure, it’s kind of a bummer for devs that are honestly just trying to highlight positive reviews rather than game Google Play’s search, but it’s something that’s got to be done.

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